WEBVTT 00:00.080 --> 00:06.800 Let's talk about how to tell if a link or what's called a backlink is good and worth pursuing. 00:07.240 --> 00:15.360 The bad news is that Google does not tell us, and the industry does not have a 100% foolproof method 00:15.360 --> 00:18.240 of determining good versus bad links. 00:18.400 --> 00:22.880 So we have to approximate and I'm going to give you the ways to approximate. 00:23.240 --> 00:26.040 There are a few factors that are important. 00:26.080 --> 00:30.680 The first factor is the relevance of the linking website. 00:31.040 --> 00:36.400 If your website is about spaceships, and the site that links to you is about cooking. 00:36.520 --> 00:40.560 The cooking site is obviously not relevant for the spaceships website. 00:41.000 --> 00:46.760 But if both websites are talking about cooking, they are relevant to each other and they'll link starts 00:46.760 --> 00:48.200 to gain more weight. 00:48.680 --> 00:54.240 So if another website is relevant to yours, it doesn't have to be gigantic or authoritative. 00:54.480 --> 00:59.960 The relevance will make the link valuable and impactful to your ranking. 01:00.280 --> 01:03.190 But of course, website authority does help. 01:03.470 --> 01:09.390 Google uses something called authority to determine how trustworthy a website is and how respectable 01:09.390 --> 01:09.870 it is. 01:10.190 --> 01:17.550 And the way it determines authority is by measuring how many other websites link to that website, and 01:17.550 --> 01:19.830 how many mentions does it have across the web? 01:20.310 --> 01:27.310 Like if hundreds or thousands other websites mention or link to a certain website, then it's quite 01:27.350 --> 01:28.310 authoritative. 01:28.670 --> 01:34.030 But if almost no websites mention or link that other website, then it's quite unauthoritative. 01:34.070 --> 01:37.710 And obviously you want links from authoritative and relevant websites. 01:38.150 --> 01:43.390 Now, another thing you want to be aware of when determining whether a link might be good or not is 01:43.710 --> 01:49.950 where on a page it's located, and how prominent it is on the overall website. 01:50.070 --> 01:58.190 For example, a link from another website's home page to your website is usually a very good and strong 01:58.190 --> 02:05.470 link, because there's only one home page and it's reserved for the most important content and links 02:05.470 --> 02:09.310 usually come from secondary pages like content pages. 02:09.630 --> 02:17.710 So let's say some content page on another website has a link to your website on a 1000 word article. 02:18.030 --> 02:25.670 And if that link is coming below the article, even from somewhere in the comments, that link is nearly 02:25.670 --> 02:27.070 worthless or worthless. 02:27.510 --> 02:33.670 But let's say that same link is within the content, but somewhere towards the bottom of the page. 02:33.670 --> 02:39.230 If it's a page of a thousand words, maybe it's around the 800 word place. 02:39.230 --> 02:40.670 That's pretty low on the page. 02:40.670 --> 02:46.590 So the link does have some value, but not as much as it would if it was in the first or second or third 02:46.590 --> 02:47.030 paragraph. 02:47.070 --> 02:48.710 You know, the prominence matters. 02:48.950 --> 02:54.990 And also, if the link is in the author bio, which is usually also at the end, that also isn't very 02:54.990 --> 02:55.870 valuable. 02:56.230 --> 02:59.950 A little bit valuable, but you want it to be higher up on the page. 03:00.310 --> 03:09.100 Now another factor that's important is how prominent the linking pages on the overall website. 03:09.420 --> 03:16.620 Obviously, I mentioned that a link from a home page is great, but if it's a page, that's one click 03:16.620 --> 03:19.740 away from the home page, that's also great. 03:19.740 --> 03:25.740 But if a link is on a page that's five clicks away from the home page and you have to navigate, navigate, 03:25.740 --> 03:31.380 navigate, navigate, click, click, click and then only get to that post on which the link to your 03:31.380 --> 03:32.260 website is. 03:32.300 --> 03:38.740 Then that page isn't that important on that website, because it's so far down and you have to click 03:38.740 --> 03:39.260 so far. 03:39.420 --> 03:43.940 And so Google just doesn't give a lot of value to those links on that page. 03:44.260 --> 03:49.980 So you want your link to be on the relevant website, authoritative website, high up on the page if 03:49.980 --> 03:54.020 possible, and on a page that's easy to navigate to. 03:54.300 --> 03:59.980 Obviously, you can't have all those great things with all links, but the more of those factors that 03:59.980 --> 04:05.700 you can get right, the more impactful those links will be to your ranking in Google search.